Myth. In a business environment, there are very few programs that require administrator to run.
I maintain the networks for quite a few businesses and while this is true for larger, current apps (ie Office 2003), there are still many apps that prompt for administrator access, run but abnormally fail (ie trying to write to a folder w/o proper permissions or to a system level registry key) or in a worse-case, continue running but don't run correctly (bad error handling) thus causing data corruption/loss.
Even things like working with msconfig will prompt a regular user with that stupid "something was changed in msconfig.. blah blah blah" message but even when the user clicks not to see that message again, it still appears due to the fact that is (for some stupid reason) a system reg key.. needless to say, if an admin makes a change with msconfig, the user should not see a dialog..
Same thing goes for fonts.. regular users can't install their own fonts w/o having to manually (afaik) adjusting the security setting in the registry (PITA).
Needless to say, while these issues can most of the time be traced back to file system permissions or incorrect registry use, the fact is that companies are STILL NOT testing using regular user accounts.. I report these issues to companies when I locate them, tell them how I solved the issue but even when new releases come out, the issue still exists.. blech. Hopefully the defaults change in Vista so these programs are BROKE and the companies will finally fix and test their software correctly.
Strangely, I don't run into these issues on my *nix systems.. go figure.
'My sense is that Microsoft is in transition from an engineering-led company to as much a design-led company...'
My sense is that Microsoft was a Marketing company and is still a Marketing company.. the only difference is the Marketing department realized that XP was "good enough" and they needed to revamp the interfaces so people would upgrade.
It seems like there are so many zombie computers, tunneling methods, insecure wireless access points, public terminals, cypto methods in a sea of trillions of packets of data/connections and ports that would render these logs useless for all but the most technophobe/idiot terrorist (which I'm guessing there are other more effective ways to nab this "low hanging fruit")
Anyone more familiar with the system know how it will help the "good guys" nab the "bad guys"? Seems like there would be a higher degree of success hanging out in a hay field and search for a needle.
Re:Interfaces should target dummies by default
on
Torvalds Says 'Use KDE'
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Problem with focusing exclusively on the "dumb users" as you put it, is the fact you limit the flexibility and scope of the system. As many have pointed out, simple configuration changes on Gnome could require registry hacks or worse, modification to souce code and a recompile of the system. Ouch.
Ideally these "dumb users" after using a given environment will expand their knowledge and no longer fit the mold of the "dumb user". Sadly, without an environment that can grow with them, they are stuck.
Solution? First, don't take a lowest-common-denominator perspective. Build a system that empowers those with the skills to expand and enhance the system by providing a rich API. Second, encourage an initial, simplified experience that allows neophytes to be productive quickly but strategicly place those advance features in such a way that the user can slowly learn and become more productive with the system.
Thats why I think KDE is a better overall system. It provides enough familiarity with desktop environment concepts people already learned to be productive quickly but also provides features to help users become more and more productive with their system (attaching scripts to the right-click menu, dcop, ioslaves, development enviornments, pykde, etc..).
Book Title: Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! From Review: If you're an absolute beginner, this book won't teach you how to program in Visual Basic.
One solution is of course to run in a more protected user mode where you're requested of admin rights when it has to do something to the system, and the upcoming version of Windows will do exactly this, and what *nix desktop managers have had for years.
Yah.. BUT even with existing Windows (Windows 2000 and XP), running as an underprivileged user does have many issues. There are still many applications on Windows that do not follow the security policy and attempt to write user data outside of their profile. ie -- try installing an app sometime as a regular user on Windows...
However, when the user see "This application requires administrator rights", will he/she still just blindly fill in the requested info, click "yes", and get the spyware?
Pretty much. This is a HUGE change for a Windows user. I'm guessing most will find this annoying and learn how to switch back to Administrator and not much will be resolved.. especially when their favorite game REQUIRES administrator access to run. blech.
I think it ends up being a numbers game. If the Open Document format is used by many different applications and can show great interoperability between these different apps, it makes a MUCH stronger case for decision makers in companies to standardize on the format.
Furthermore, it can assist in putting pressure on developers to add support for the format (see: snowball effect).
It is IMHO easier and cooler to configure and use a KDE desktop than any other free desktop when we are a newbie.
Your selling it short. Its great for not only newbies, but advance users as well. There is a LOT in KDE including ioslaves, dcop, scripting, developer tools, kate (advanced text editor) and so much more that makes it very capable to be customized and optimized for a wide variety of users (very few limitations).
What does using a third party (rdesktop, vnc, etc) or built-in (ssh, telnet) app to work on remote servers have to do with an environment manager?
Hmm.. he is talking about ioslaves.. its very cool -- you should check it out.. it allows KDE apps to utilize network resources (via smb, nfs, ssh, ftp and a LOT more..) as if they are local files (ie via save/open dialogs, drag and drop, etc..). Once you start using it, you REALLY miss it when working on other platforms.
When somebody buys a server with no OS, installs a Linux that they downloaded, is that really a "server" or just a play box? Anybody who's serious about setting up a "server" is going to buy support.
Well sure there will be some support in there some where, but it doesn't necessarily need to come direct from the vendor (Microsoft, Novell, IBM, Red Hat, etc..).
There are ample consultants that will do white boxes and provide support themselves as well as companies that hire on-site support. There are a LOT of Linux/BSD installs w/o a formal support contracts.
We have OpenOffice 2.0 just recently released that hasn't quite reached a stride and Office 12 scheduled for release sometime next year.. So umm.. this is just a checkbox item. If MS says they will open the format, it satisfies the new checkbox criteria for government purchases.
Get customers migrated to Office 12 with its new fangled interface and follow up with smaller, incremental updates and it starts to make OpenOffice 2.0 look umm..outdated.
By the time this open format gets published in 2007 or 2008 or whenever (didn't they say Vista would be released in 2003/4??), who knows if it will be complete or even if MS fully complies with the published standard (they haven't complied with standards in the past..).
Even IF they comply for the short-term.. who is to say they simply won't migrate away from their own standard and back to a propietary version once perhaps StarOffice stops being developed (the optimal choice for businesses)?
Actually, this Macrovision protection seems kinda pointless.
Hmm yah.. it is. But then again, any CD protection scheme is pointless. There are ways around all of it. Seems to me that they would have to scrap CDs all-together and develop an encrypted format that only plays on "authorized" devices rending all existing CD-based infrastructure obsolete.
But even in that scenario, the music still needs to play *somewhere*. So I can take the output, plug it back into a recording device and record the song. Fancy DRM averted.
I think its simply because no one used other processors to run Windows (Back when NT3/NT4 supported MIPS, Alpha, PPC..). The Alpha seemed (at the time) to be the second most-used platform for NT as it did have performance advantage over IA32, but ultimately, not enough software was released native for Alpha to make it a truly usable platform.
Fast forward to today and I don't really see a strong argument for releasing on multiple architectures. x86-64 provides a cost effective and fast platform. While other processors/architectures might be more suitable for a particular niche, the lack of binary drivers and applications would (I would believe) keep people from utilizing it (If I have to write a custom app anyways.. why not do it on Linux/BSD or an OS optimized for a particular chip..)
I see this as an absolute non-issue. There are so many ways to resolve this long-term and several short-term possibilities:
Short-Term: 1. Open document in OpenOffice.org, save as a MS Office doc, open in MS Office.. full access to accessibility tools. Once done, convert back. With a little creative hacking, it could be seamless (absolutely seamless if they were running KDE and created a kioslave..:)
2. Research non-Office suite specific accessibility tools (those that operate at the OS level) and evaluate. These might be satisfactory.
Long-Term: 1. Microsoft supports OpenDocument. Access to pre-existing tools still functions properly, no problems.
2. Third-party creates an import/export of OpenDocument for MS Office
3. Existing third-party accessibility companies provide support for OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, KOffice or any of the other suites supporting OpenDocument format. Perhaps funds saved from not buying MS licenses can seed this development.
4. Companies such as IBM already develop/maintain many accessibility tools. It seems likely that they would be a prime candidate for migrating these tools over to be OpenOffice/StarOffice compatible.
I have been using http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/ for about 7 months for a network of ~50 systems. I use this with FirefoxADM for some basic browser configuration. There will be the "ADM XPI for Firefox 1.5" which from my brief understanding will integrate Firefox config w/registry and allow for tighter group policy management.
It would definitely be nice to have an official MSI package (as it would attract many more admins) coupled with something like ADM XPI.. *hopefully* that will happen.. I thought I read that 1.5 would have an official MSI but couldn't find a reference.
I believe if you reviewed all the current modern browsers, you would find that indeed, IE is trailing. Trailing with regards to total number of exploits/patches, trailing in compliance to web standards, trailing in feature set, etc..etc..
To top this off, it costs money! The only version that might have been considered free was IE for Macintosh, but this has long since been discontinued. As IE is an integrated part of Windows, and you pay for Windows.. well umm, your paying for IE. Its as simple as that.
Compare this to Firefox. It is freely available, available for windows, mac os x, linux, bsd, solaris, etc.. has more features, is more standards compliant, is still very new (1.0 was released less than a year ago) and is very competitive with security issues (total number of exploits) as Internet Explorer.
As a network administrator, I see a huge advantage -- particularly with malware. When IE was the default browser, systems were routinely getting attacked with malware. Once an entire network was converted to Firefox, malware ceased to be a problem and as a result, computers ran faster and employees were more productive.
Perhaps once IE7 is released, it will be on slightly more equal footing (they claim better standards compliance, a feature set more inline with Firefox, etc..) but until then, it is so far out based on any metric that giving it "equal footing" is just umm.. stupid.
Is the focus exclusively on _just_ OSS principles? If so, how can you _not_ devote a large portion of time to the methodologies, ideaologies, philosophies and political climate surrounding open source?
If it is not really about OSS per-say but using OSS tools to achieve a goal (ie a programming class.. with open source! or sys admin calss.. with open source!) then it seems like it woudl follow the basic course structure of what it is trying to emulate but with the use of open source tools.
My thoughts of a "OSS" class as pertaining to a CS student:
1. Intro to OSS.. perhaps some reading such as The Cathedral and Bazaar would be a good start. Explore the benefits of OSS and use of open standards and some of the existing political climate issues (software patents, lobbying, etc..)
2. Application design and structure (look at existing successful OSS projects and explore how the application design has allowed it to be successful in a distributed, global, Internet driven development environment)
3. Open Source tools (gcc, make, python, php, ruby.. whatever.. depends on you) and open source resources (ie sourceforge, freshmeat, popular project sites, etc..)
seems like that would establish a solid introduction to open source and cover many of the fundamentals necessary to get a student involved in the use and creation of open source software.
1. Firefox. On a website I administer that is *not* tech focused, Firefox this month is accounts for 26.6% of the hits to the site. A year ago, it was under 1%. Internet Explorer accounts for 62% of visitors compared to over 90% a year ago. Granted, the site is small, but as it is not tech focused I think the numbers are impressive.
2. Microsoft's stock for the past 4 years has been flat (25-30/share). Google since its IPO over a year ago went from $100/share to over $300/share. Google is clearly on the radar for business execs and stockholders. If Google is wanting a partnership and stake its reputation with Sun's StarOffice/OpenOffice.org than there is a good chance that people will take notice.
3. Download a toolbar, get an office suite. Sounds really useful for home users and businesses on a tight budget. The fact it is from Google a name people seem to know and trust is icing on the cake. Whats the alternative? Works? Spending hundreds on MS Office? OOo2.0 seems pretty nice to me.
I am not saying Microsoft will be killed off or anything like that.. but this does have the potential to provide a true competitor to the MS-Office suite (something that has been sorely lacking for way too long). Granted, it is a huge battle and one Microsoft will fight fierce to win. So it will be interesting to say the least.
IE6 has been out for 4 years and built on code that has been used for many years before that. With no significant features being added to IE6 and two major service packs it would seem that the software should be (at this time) very secure. Its still not.
Firefox has been out for less than a year. Given the age, it would stand to reason that it would have more bugs that need to be fixed. With time, it would be anticipated these will reduce.
Firefox has more features and higher degree of compatibility with standards -- I'd expect these would introduce bugs as well that need to be fixed.
Firefox does not have access to the resources Microsoft has (some of the best developers, huge amount of capital, sophisticated testing facilities and networks, etc..) and as a result, it would be expected there are more bugs, etc..
Firefox is available for a wider range of platforms. Given this variance, it would be anticipated more bugs would occur as a result.
The source to Firefox is freely available. As a result, it is very possible for a wider amount of people to look at the code and find bugs MUCH easier than with IE. As a result, more bugs should be reported.
I could go on and on and on.. but needless to say, the fact there are more security/bug reports shouldn't be that big of a surprise. The biggest question is if the fundamental architecture of the software keeps security issues minor and if the development team is capable of keeping their software secure in a quick and efficient manner.
I think it is pretty clear from looking at the links provided in the article that this indeed is the case. The vulnerabilities are far less critical, there are less outstanding issues, etc..
I'm curious how the picture will change a year or two down the road.. IE has been pretty consistent with security issues -- I really expect Firefox security issues to decline.
As most people have mentioned, you are atleast two years out from a full migration (assuming your company does not acquire consultants/senior unix admins) so here are some thoughts..
1. Learn all you can about Linux on your own test machines. There is a LOT of information out there (books, websites, user groups, classes, etc..) -- get as involved as you can. If possible, find a mentor that can help guide you. Unix/Linux is different from Windows and the mindset is different. You will run into many brick walls attempting to manage a linux machine like a Windows machine until you really start to fully understand how the system works.
2. Establish concrete rational for your migration plans. Ideally a 5 year proposal or similar might be a good idea. This should include the steps of the migration (ie converting apps to cross platform apps.. migrating the server... desktop rollout.. etc..) and have the input of individuals familiar with these types of migrations. In addition, evaluate advantages of the migration. Perhaps the use of thin clients or other hardware cost saving measures would be viable.
3. Learn Windows. It sounds like your having issues with Windows. Needless to say, you are stuck with Windows for a while.. so brush up on your Windows admin skills. Restricting administrative access, keeping patches up-to-date (centralized patch deployment via sus/group policy), keeping your network adequately isolated (scanning incoming email/files, properly configured firewalls, network monitoring, etc..) and creating group policies goes a LONG way to combatting many common Windows issues. This should be your #1 priority.
While there are fundamental differences between Windows networks and Unix/Linux networks, both benefit greatly from solid admin skills. This involves maintaining the infrastructure, evaluating and minimizing security issues, keeping the end-user productive (if your job extends this far, this might include profiling a worker and providing technical solutions to minimize redundancy, rework or other time consuming, zero profit tasks) and understanding the industry (both tech and your companies industry) and developing a road map that (ideally) gives your company a competitive edge.
Slashdot Mirror
Myth. In a business environment, there are very few programs that require administrator to run.
.. regular users can't install their own fonts w/o having to manually (afaik) adjusting the security setting in the registry (PITA).
.. blech. Hopefully the defaults change in Vista so these programs are BROKE and the companies will finally fix and test their software correctly.
I maintain the networks for quite a few businesses and while this is true for larger, current apps (ie Office 2003), there are still many apps that prompt for administrator access, run but abnormally fail (ie trying to write to a folder w/o proper permissions or to a system level registry key) or in a worse-case, continue running but don't run correctly (bad error handling) thus causing data corruption/loss.
Even things like working with msconfig will prompt a regular user with that stupid "something was changed in msconfig.. blah blah blah" message but even when the user clicks not to see that message again, it still appears due to the fact that is (for some stupid reason) a system reg key.. needless to say, if an admin makes a change with msconfig, the user should not see a dialog..
Same thing goes for fonts
Needless to say, while these issues can most of the time be traced back to file system permissions or incorrect registry use, the fact is that companies are STILL NOT testing using regular user accounts.. I report these issues to companies when I locate them, tell them how I solved the issue but even when new releases come out, the issue still exists
Strangely, I don't run into these issues on my *nix systems.. go figure.
'My sense is that Microsoft is in transition from an engineering-led company to as much a design-led company ...'
.. the only difference is the Marketing department realized that XP was "good enough" and they needed to revamp the interfaces so people would upgrade.
My sense is that Microsoft was a Marketing company and is still a Marketing company
It seems like there are so many zombie computers, tunneling methods, insecure wireless access points, public terminals, cypto methods in a sea of trillions of packets of data/connections and ports that would render these logs useless for all but the most technophobe/idiot terrorist (which I'm guessing there are other more effective ways to nab this "low hanging fruit")
Anyone more familiar with the system know how it will help the "good guys" nab the "bad guys"? Seems like there would be a higher degree of success hanging out in a hay field and search for a needle.
Problem with focusing exclusively on the "dumb users" as you put it, is the fact you limit the flexibility and scope of the system. As many have pointed out, simple configuration changes on Gnome could require registry hacks or worse, modification to souce code and a recompile of the system. Ouch.
Ideally these "dumb users" after using a given environment will expand their knowledge and no longer fit the mold of the "dumb user". Sadly, without an environment that can grow with them, they are stuck.
Solution? First, don't take a lowest-common-denominator perspective. Build a system that empowers those with the skills to expand and enhance the system by providing a rich API. Second, encourage an initial, simplified experience that allows neophytes to be productive quickly but strategicly place those advance features in such a way that the user can slowly learn and become more productive with the system.
Thats why I think KDE is a better overall system. It provides enough familiarity with desktop environment concepts people already learned to be productive quickly but also provides features to help users become more and more productive with their system (attaching scripts to the right-click menu, dcop, ioslaves, development enviornments, pykde, etc..).
Yah.. but like the dot com era when patents were assigned for "prior art .. on the Internet!" we now have "prior art .. with fries!"
no no no .. i was thinking Guiness TV Ads..
Book Title: Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!
From Review: If you're an absolute beginner, this book won't teach you how to program in Visual Basic.
Brilliant!
One solution is of course to run in a more protected user mode where you're requested of admin rights when it has to do something to the system, and the upcoming version of Windows will do exactly this, and what *nix desktop managers have had for years.
Yah.. BUT even with existing Windows (Windows 2000 and XP), running as an underprivileged user does have many issues. There are still many applications on Windows that do not follow the security policy and attempt to write user data outside of their profile. ie -- try installing an app sometime as a regular user on Windows...
However, when the user see "This application requires administrator rights", will he/she still just blindly fill in the requested info, click "yes", and get the spyware?
Pretty much. This is a HUGE change for a Windows user. I'm guessing most will find this annoying and learn how to switch back to Administrator and not much will be resolved.. especially when their favorite game REQUIRES administrator access to run. blech.
I think it ends up being a numbers game. If the Open Document format is used by many different applications and can show great interoperability between these different apps, it makes a MUCH stronger case for decision makers in companies to standardize on the format.
Furthermore, it can assist in putting pressure on developers to add support for the format (see: snowball effect).
Their reply would be: you really don't need the water anyway.
:)
If thats the case, why did they provide water in the first place?
If Intel [or AMD] had any sense of justice they wouldn't prolong the x86 line because it's just plain ugly.
.. where did THAT get them.. :)
I thought Intel tried that with the Itanium? Lets see
It is IMHO easier and cooler to configure and use a KDE desktop than any other free desktop when we are a newbie.
Your selling it short. Its great for not only newbies, but advance users as well. There is a LOT in KDE including ioslaves, dcop, scripting, developer tools, kate (advanced text editor) and so much more that makes it very capable to be customized and optimized for a wide variety of users (very few limitations).
What does using a third party (rdesktop, vnc, etc) or built-in (ssh, telnet) app to work on remote servers have to do with an environment manager?
.. its very cool -- you should check it out.. it allows KDE apps to utilize network resources (via smb, nfs, ssh, ftp and a LOT more..) as if they are local files (ie via save/open dialogs, drag and drop, etc..). Once you start using it, you REALLY miss it when working on other platforms.
Hmm.. he is talking about ioslaves
When somebody buys a server with no OS, installs a Linux that they downloaded, is that really a "server" or just a play box? Anybody who's serious about setting up a "server" is going to buy support.
Well sure there will be some support in there some where, but it doesn't necessarily need to come direct from the vendor (Microsoft, Novell, IBM, Red Hat, etc..).
There are ample consultants that will do white boxes and provide support themselves as well as companies that hire on-site support. There are a LOT of Linux/BSD installs w/o a formal support contracts.
Lets see.. 18 months.
.. who is to say they simply won't migrate away from their own standard and back to a propietary version once perhaps StarOffice stops being developed (the optimal choice for businesses)?
We have OpenOffice 2.0 just recently released that hasn't quite reached a stride and Office 12 scheduled for release sometime next year.. So umm.. this is just a checkbox item. If MS says they will open the format, it satisfies the new checkbox criteria for government purchases.
Get customers migrated to Office 12 with its new fangled interface and follow up with smaller, incremental updates and it starts to make OpenOffice 2.0 look umm..outdated.
By the time this open format gets published in 2007 or 2008 or whenever (didn't they say Vista would be released in 2003/4??), who knows if it will be complete or even if MS fully complies with the published standard (they haven't complied with standards in the past..).
Even IF they comply for the short-term
Sounds like POSIX compliance in NT..
Actually, this Macrovision protection seems kinda pointless.
.. it is. But then again, any CD protection scheme is pointless. There are ways around all of it. Seems to me that they would have to scrap CDs all-together and develop an encrypted format that only plays on "authorized" devices rending all existing CD-based infrastructure obsolete.
Hmm yah
But even in that scenario, the music still needs to play *somewhere*. So I can take the output, plug it back into a recording device and record the song. Fancy DRM averted.
Why does windows only run on 1 type of processor?
.. why not do it on Linux/BSD or an OS optimized for a particular chip..)
I think its simply because no one used other processors to run Windows (Back when NT3/NT4 supported MIPS, Alpha, PPC..). The Alpha seemed (at the time) to be the second most-used platform for NT as it did have performance advantage over IA32, but ultimately, not enough software was released native for Alpha to make it a truly usable platform.
Fast forward to today and I don't really see a strong argument for releasing on multiple architectures. x86-64 provides a cost effective and fast platform. While other processors/architectures might be more suitable for a particular niche, the lack of binary drivers and applications would (I would believe) keep people from utilizing it (If I have to write a custom app anyways
I see this as an absolute non-issue. There are so many ways to resolve this long-term and several short-term possibilities:
.. full access to accessibility tools. Once done, convert back. With a little creative hacking, it could be seamless (absolutely seamless if they were running KDE and created a kioslave .. :)
Short-Term:
1. Open document in OpenOffice.org, save as a MS Office doc, open in MS Office
2. Research non-Office suite specific accessibility tools (those that operate at the OS level) and evaluate. These might be satisfactory.
Long-Term:
1. Microsoft supports OpenDocument. Access to pre-existing tools still functions properly, no problems.
2. Third-party creates an import/export of OpenDocument for MS Office
3. Existing third-party accessibility companies provide support for OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, KOffice or any of the other suites supporting OpenDocument format. Perhaps funds saved from not buying MS licenses can seed this development.
4. Companies such as IBM already develop/maintain many accessibility tools. It seems likely that they would be a prime candidate for migrating these tools over to be OpenOffice/StarOffice compatible.
I have been using http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/ for about 7 months for a network of ~50 systems. I use this with FirefoxADM for some basic browser configuration. There will be the "ADM XPI for Firefox 1.5" which from my brief understanding will integrate Firefox config w/registry and allow for tighter group policy management.
.. *hopefully* that will happen.. I thought I read that 1.5 would have an official MSI but couldn't find a reference.
It would definitely be nice to have an official MSI package (as it would attract many more admins) coupled with something like ADM XPI
I believe if you reviewed all the current modern browsers, you would find that indeed, IE is trailing. Trailing with regards to total number of exploits/patches, trailing in compliance to web standards, trailing in feature set, etc..etc..
.. well umm, your paying for IE. Its as simple as that.
To top this off, it costs money! The only version that might have been considered free was IE for Macintosh, but this has long since been discontinued. As IE is an integrated part of Windows, and you pay for Windows
Compare this to Firefox. It is freely available, available for windows, mac os x, linux, bsd, solaris, etc.. has more features, is more standards compliant, is still very new (1.0 was released less than a year ago) and is very competitive with security issues (total number of exploits) as Internet Explorer.
As a network administrator, I see a huge advantage -- particularly with malware. When IE was the default browser, systems were routinely getting attacked with malware. Once an entire network was converted to Firefox, malware ceased to be a problem and as a result, computers ran faster and employees were more productive.
Perhaps once IE7 is released, it will be on slightly more equal footing (they claim better standards compliance, a feature set more inline with Firefox, etc..) but until then, it is so far out based on any metric that giving it "equal footing" is just umm.. stupid.
Is the focus exclusively on _just_ OSS principles? If so, how can you _not_ devote a large portion of time to the methodologies, ideaologies, philosophies and political climate surrounding open source?
.. perhaps some reading such as The Cathedral and Bazaar would be a good start. Explore the benefits of OSS and use of open standards and some of the existing political climate issues (software patents, lobbying, etc..)
.. whatever.. depends on you) and open source resources (ie sourceforge, freshmeat, popular project sites, etc..)
If it is not really about OSS per-say but using OSS tools to achieve a goal (ie a programming class.. with open source! or sys admin calss.. with open source!) then it seems like it woudl follow the basic course structure of what it is trying to emulate but with the use of open source tools.
My thoughts of a "OSS" class as pertaining to a CS student:
1. Intro to OSS
2. Application design and structure (look at existing successful OSS projects and explore how the application design has allowed it to be successful in a distributed, global, Internet driven development environment)
3. Open Source tools (gcc, make, python, php, ruby
seems like that would establish a solid introduction to open source and cover many of the fundamentals necessary to get a student involved in the use and creation of open source software.
Here are some counterpoints to consider..
1. Firefox. On a website I administer that is *not* tech focused, Firefox this month is accounts for 26.6% of the hits to the site. A year ago, it was under 1%. Internet Explorer accounts for 62% of visitors compared to over 90% a year ago. Granted, the site is small, but as it is not tech focused I think the numbers are impressive.
2. Microsoft's stock for the past 4 years has been flat (25-30/share). Google since its IPO over a year ago went from $100/share to over $300/share. Google is clearly on the radar for business execs and stockholders. If Google is wanting a partnership and stake its reputation with Sun's StarOffice/OpenOffice.org than there is a good chance that people will take notice.
3. Download a toolbar, get an office suite. Sounds really useful for home users and businesses on a tight budget. The fact it is from Google a name people seem to know and trust is icing on the cake. Whats the alternative? Works? Spending hundreds on MS Office? OOo2.0 seems pretty nice to me.
I am not saying Microsoft will be killed off or anything like that.. but this does have the potential to provide a true competitor to the MS-Office suite (something that has been sorely lacking for way too long). Granted, it is a huge battle and one Microsoft will fight fierce to win. So it will be interesting to say the least.
The Dell Latitude line is geared toward business users. The Inspiron line is for home users. According to Dell's Linux page:
Dell does not officially support running Linux on Dell laptops."
So where can I order one of these things?
Should there be any surprise?
IE6 has been out for 4 years and built on code that has been used for many years before that. With no significant features being added to IE6 and two major service packs it would seem that the software should be (at this time) very secure. Its still not.
Firefox has been out for less than a year. Given the age, it would stand to reason that it would have more bugs that need to be fixed. With time, it would be anticipated these will reduce.
Firefox has more features and higher degree of compatibility with standards -- I'd expect these would introduce bugs as well that need to be fixed.
Firefox does not have access to the resources Microsoft has (some of the best developers, huge amount of capital, sophisticated testing facilities and networks, etc..) and as a result, it would be expected there are more bugs, etc..
Firefox is available for a wider range of platforms. Given this variance, it would be anticipated more bugs would occur as a result.
The source to Firefox is freely available. As a result, it is very possible for a wider amount of people to look at the code and find bugs MUCH easier than with IE. As a result, more bugs should be reported.
I could go on and on and on.. but needless to say, the fact there are more security/bug reports shouldn't be that big of a surprise. The biggest question is if the fundamental architecture of the software keeps security issues minor and if the development team is capable of keeping their software secure in a quick and efficient manner.
I think it is pretty clear from looking at the links provided in the article that this indeed is the case. The vulnerabilities are far less critical, there are less outstanding issues, etc..
I'm curious how the picture will change a year or two down the road.. IE has been pretty consistent with security issues -- I really expect Firefox security issues to decline.
As most people have mentioned, you are atleast two years out from a full migration (assuming your company does not acquire consultants/senior unix admins) so here are some thoughts..
.. so brush up on your Windows admin skills. Restricting administrative access, keeping patches up-to-date (centralized patch deployment via sus/group policy), keeping your network adequately isolated (scanning incoming email/files, properly configured firewalls, network monitoring, etc..) and creating group policies goes a LONG way to combatting many common Windows issues. This should be your #1 priority.
1. Learn all you can about Linux on your own test machines. There is a LOT of information out there (books, websites, user groups, classes, etc..) -- get as involved as you can. If possible, find a mentor that can help guide you. Unix/Linux is different from Windows and the mindset is different. You will run into many brick walls attempting to manage a linux machine like a Windows machine until you really start to fully understand how the system works.
2. Establish concrete rational for your migration plans. Ideally a 5 year proposal or similar might be a good idea. This should include the steps of the migration (ie converting apps to cross platform apps.. migrating the server... desktop rollout.. etc..) and have the input of individuals familiar with these types of migrations. In addition, evaluate advantages of the migration. Perhaps the use of thin clients or other hardware cost saving measures would be viable.
3. Learn Windows. It sounds like your having issues with Windows. Needless to say, you are stuck with Windows for a while
While there are fundamental differences between Windows networks and Unix/Linux networks, both benefit greatly from solid admin skills. This involves maintaining the infrastructure, evaluating and minimizing security issues, keeping the end-user productive (if your job extends this far, this might include profiling a worker and providing technical solutions to minimize redundancy, rework or other time consuming, zero profit tasks) and understanding the industry (both tech and your companies industry) and developing a road map that (ideally) gives your company a competitive edge.